Sometimes when researching and examining Open XML WordprocessingML markup, extraneous markup that is not relevant to the issue at hand gets in the way of seeing what is going on. If you are researching markup by creating documents, altering documents, and then comparing the two documents, as detailed in How to Solve Open XML Developer Problems, your research process is made significantly easier by simplifying the markup before comparing. The MarkupSimplifier class (which is part of the PowerTools for Open XML project) can help, but as downloaded from CodePlex it is simply a class. I've created a small WinForm application that enables you to select various simplification options and apply them to one or more documents. This small app makes it much easier to do your research.

I've recorded a small video that shows the MarkupSimplifierApp in use:

Watch: Video of MarkupSimplifierApp in action

The MarkupSimplifierApp is available in source code (along with its Visual Studio project), attached to this blog post.

-Eric White